Just a quick update on my book about Edisonades and other proto-SF in American literature.

I’ve taken the last few weeks to revise my revisions before I send out query letters to academic presses. Folks who are familiar with academic publishing know what this entails. Lots of double-checking references to be sure I’m correctly portraying someone else’s arguments, though most of that’s been moved to footnotes. Lots of micro-editing at this stage.

In addition to the manuscript itself, there’s the prospectus, which includes summaries, explanation of the book’s originality and contribution to the field, analysis of competing books on similar topics, and basically a “pitch.” There are a number of helpful sites for writing these things, including Tonya Golash-Boza’s wonderfully titled “Get a Life, Ph.D.”